THE FIVE CATEGORIES
OF LEAD NURTURING
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING
The Five Flavors of Lead Nurturing
Most marketers roll out lead nurturing primary for new customer
acquisition. This makes sense, as most leads are not sales ready and
need a little marketing TLC. Why pass a high volume of leads to Sales
that will not convert to opportunities today? That is not to say that
most of these leads won’t buy, they are just not buying today. Instead
of abandoning these leads, savvy marketers “nurture” them and get
20%, 25%, or 30% of those leads to engage and become qualified
opportunities over time— and see significant incremental revenue.
Unfortunately, that’s where lead nurturing ends for most marketers.
Today, however, lead nurturing programs have evolved, taking on
different shapes and styles. If you are not leveraging all of them, you
could be missing out on millions in potential revenue.
57
%
of B2B organizations identify
'converting qualified leads into
paying customers' as a top
funnel priority.
(Source: MarketingSherpa)
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING
The Five Flavors of Lead Nurturing
The 5 Types of Lead Nurturing Programs
1. New Customer Acquisition
If you do not currently have a lead nurturing program, this is where
you should start. Don’t think of lead nurturing just in terms of email.
Think of it as an omni-channel journey where you are pushing out
relevant content of all styles to specific personas at a specific stage in the
buying cycle. You’ll find that this approach will help drive higher quality
leads down the pipeline and build awareness and recognition in the
marketplace.
2. New Product Launch/Update
Marketers often use this opportunity to publish a press release, leverage
social media, and send out an email. However, a new product launch
is also a great time to roll out a lead nurturing campaign that engages
and educates various audiences with different messages. According to
Marketing Donut, “63% of people requesting information on your
company today will not purchase for at least three months—20%
will take more than 12 months to buy.” Using a well-designed lead
nurturing program will accelerate the purchase decision for many.
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING
The Five Flavors of Lead Nurturing
3. Existing Customer Upsell/Cross-sell
Too many marketers focus all their time on acquiring new customers
and overlook existing customers. For many companies, over 75% of
revenue comes from existing customers. What makes this kind of
lead nurturing approach particularly interesting is that you can leverage
purchase history as well as buying preferences and behaviors to help
you segment audiences and identify your upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
In your organization, these types of campaigns may not come from
Marketing, but from Customer Success, Customer Service, or Account
Management. The groups may not be familiar with the mechanics of
lead nurturing, so the initiative may require Marketing to work with
other teams to kick off the program. No matter where they come from,
these campaigns will make your customers feel valued and help improve
loyalty.
4. Dormant Customer Re-engagement
No matter how strong your marketing is, you are going to have a certain
percentage of dormant customers and prospects. Lead nurturing
programs that target dormant customers can help, but they must be
data-driven so you can accurately segment your audiences. Research
shows that the investment of your time is worth it. Many companies who
have launched this type of nurturing program have seen up to 35% of
their dormant customers and prospects re-engage and even become
active advocates for their products, services, or brands. You have already
made the investment in acquiring these names—and many of them had
expressed a good amount of interest in your company at some time.
Aren’t they are worth reaching out to one more time?
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING
The Five Flavors of Lead Nurturing
5. Competitive Win-Back
The vendor-customer relationship can be hard to explain and
understand. Sometimes you just don’t know what happened at a specific
stage in a given buyer’s journey. What you can know is that whatever
the trigger was that caused a customer to choose your competitor over
you can also work against your competitor. Often it is just a matter of
time. With this type of lead nurturing program you need to make sure
that you are showcasing very clear value propositions and competitive
advantages, such as pricing, benefits, support, and training. Because
you have nothing to lose, the tone for these campaigns are often a bit
bolder.
If your organization already has a formal lead management process and
is leveraging marketing automation, don’t forget about Lead Recycling.
Sometimes, no matter how well Marketing qualifies a lead, once it is
handed over to Sales, it is not accepted. Perhaps budget has changed.
Other times a timeline has been altered. Who knows? If that lead is
“recycled,” it will go back to Marketing to be nurtured again. But it should
be placed in a new, different lead nurturing program from those leads
that are going down the lead management funnel for the first time. Since
lead nurturing is all about timing and getting the right message to a
specific prospect or customer when they are ready to buy, lead recycling
programs can be fairly successful.
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING
Lead nurturing emails get 4-10
times the response rate compared
to standalone email blasts.
(Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report)
ABOUT MARKETBRIDGE
For over fifteen years Marketbridge has been
helping customers drive sales and marketing
productivity through four customer lifecycle
solutions: demand creation, lead nurturing,
sales acceleration and customer retention.
These solutions combine the art of content
personalization with the science of data and
analytics, to drive higher quality leads, ready-tobuy customers and shorter sales cycles. From
buyer segmentation to lead nurturing programs
to digital sales tools, our unique “connecting
sales and marketing” approach delivers
significant revenue growth and cost savings to
our customers.
Corporate Website:
www.market-bridge.com
MarketBridge Community:
www.the-digital-bridge.com
Phone:
1-888-GO-TO-MKT
Corporate Headquarters:
4800 Montgomery Lane, 5th Floor
Bethesda, MD, 20814
San Francisco, CA
601 Montgomery St., Suite 650
San Francisco, CA 94111
New York, NY
79 Madison Ave, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10016
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THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF LEAD NURTURING